That the youth-obsessed Brit Awards have recognised Bush’s importance is a
sign that maybe our pop scene is growing up.

The news this week that Kate Bush has been nominated for a Brit award was like stepping down memory lane. The last time Bush was regularly associated with the competition was in the bad old days of the early Nineties, when the ceremony was seen as a comically shambolic and irrelevant affair, with major label fat cats dolling out gongs to their washed-up old favourites. Bush, who has had 16 nominations over the years, seemed, along with Annie Lennox, to be permanently ensconced on the ''Best Female’’ list whether she had released any music or not.

Fast forward 25 years since her last win – in which time the Brits have been reinvented as a slick TV show, in tune with chart success and record sales, and punctuated by high-octane live performances from young female stars - and, incredibly, here again up for the Best British Female Solo Artist is the Wuthering Heights recluse from Bexleyheath.

At 53 Bush is considerably older than any of her 20-something female competitors. The only acts who come anywhere close - PJ Harvey, Björk, Noel Gallagher, Jay Z and the Foo Fighters Dave Grohl – are all in their mid forties. Which is hardly surprising given the Brits, and British pop’s obsession with youth. Ever since the lava of screaming teenage Beatles fans erupted into the moribund world of post-war light entertainment, the rock bed of our pop culture has been youth and novelty.

The only obvious place this ageing pop star had in the world of the Brits was, surely, being given the death knell that is the “Outstanding Achievement” award. The equivalent of the carriage clock retirement gift, this long standing services slap-on-the-back has been bestowed on everyone from Sir Paul McCartney to the Pet Shop Boys. This year, former Brit Pop poster boys Blur are in line, but it is an award for which Bush has either been overlooked, or more likely, one that she has actively shunned.

From her dramatic entrance into music in the late Seventies as a precocious but otherwordly teenager unafraid to tackle the male lead in Bronte’s dark drama, to the unexpected release of two albums last year despite being perceived as slow worker, Bush has stubbornly refused to play by the traditional pop rules. Despite her utterly feminine voice, and often provocatively glamorous appearance, she was more influenced by David Bowie and Elton John than the likes of Joni Mitchell or Carole King.

She has always drawn upon the inner life of her mind and books, films and philosophy rather then the traditional first person ''baby-I-love-you’’ pop narrative. Famously she only toured once and since 1979 has shunned live performance yet has been a consistently visual presence, using videos as an arena for serious cinematic productions, such as her 1985 Cloudbusting masterpiece.

She wrestled control from the record company over the sound of her music early on, teaching herself how to produce her albums and, apart from an early flurry, has worked slowly and sparsely, taking a 12-year break to bring up her son. Compare this with fellow Brit contender Rihanna, who at the age of 23 has brought out six albums and toured four times, steered by a production and writing team of hundreds.

But rather than her nomination being a sign of misty-eyed nostalgia – a gentle shove for a middle-aged dame into that dread category of ''national treasure’’ ie beyond reproach but obsolete – it’s the music Bush is making now that is still worthy of applause.

Last year’s remixed Director’s Cut album, followed by the wintry beauty of 50 Words for Snow are hypnotically beautiful records: bearing the trademarks of ethereal and elemental Bush, and yet carving out subtle inroads into new styles encompassing jazz, classical and soul influences. Both records manage to sound simultaneously familiar and alien and therefore bizarrely, compared with the box-ticking trendy production styles of her young pop rivals, Bush’s latest music sounds among the most inventively weird on the Brits line-up.

While her contemporaries – Peter Gabriel, Sting and Prince – have seen record sales decline as their careers become focused on touring their back catalogues, Bush has determinedly refused to draw a line under her creative relevance while being seemingly oblivious to contemporary sounds.

Compare this with Madonna who at exactly the same age as Bush has rigorously followed musical fashions. Her success has been greater, and influence on pop starlets from Jessie J to Lady Gaga more tangible, yet the more self-consciously cool her work has tried to stay, the less relevant she has seemed.

That the youth-obsessed Brits have recognised Bush’s importance is a sign that maybe our pop scene is growing up. As it slowly moves into its jazz phase, where old records are as important as new ones, where veteran performers are seen as exciting as young ones, and where novelty is replaced by nuance and depth, the success of Bush is a vision of the future rather than a blast from the past.